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Un-becoming

“Maybe the journey isn’t about becoming anything.
Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you
so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”
~ Unknown

Read that again… and let it sink in.

When I stumbled upon this quote this morning, it instantly grabbed me as if it was written to help me find the clarity I’ve been seeking.

The past few years have been a mindfuck to say the least. A rollercoaster ride I never saw coming. Pain. Love. Tragedy. Terror. Happiness. Betrayal. Freedom. Success. Failure. Pride. Understanding. Fear. Growth. But I had not quite been able to put my finger on what was happening to my mind… until I read that quote.

We all have our own hell to pass through at some point in our lives that makes us feel like we’re on a hamster wheel, spinning and spinning, wanting answers to the question, “Why?” Sometimes the answer is complicated or never to be discovered, but oftentimes the answer is the same for all of us.

“Why?”

My uneducated guess is maybe you weren’t being authentic. True to yourself. Honest about your heart and needs.

Think about it. When you feel hurt, was it always because you were a victim or were there times the true hurt came from you not speaking up when you saw the red flags? Or perhaps you were holding back because you didn’t want to hurt someone else, throwing yourself on the sword instead.

Let me take you back to when you were a child or take a few minutes to watch very young children at play. What you’ll see is an uninhibited, lack of filter in their actions and words. They SOAR across a room, not caring who’s watching. They speak their minds, not worrying they’ll be made fun of. They are truly free to be themselves on every level, from wearing a tutu at the grocery store to having a light-saber fight with themselves on a beach.

They are free. Un-becoming. But in a short period of time, when they start to notice people are judgmental, they become… someone they aren’t.

Do you remember when that moment happened to you? Was it a teacher, a bully at school or one at home? Was it someone who you looked up to who made you feel small and insignificant?

Really think about that moment your world switched from un-becoming to becoming. Because if you can figure that out, you’ll see the trigger that keeps you repeating old patterns of letting people trap you in boxes of their own design, not yours.

I’ll go one step further. Once you can define that person who shoved you into your first box, you might very well be able to identify why you keep choosing people who want to do the same. It’s what’s familiar. Like it or not, there’s comfort in familiarity, even dysfunctional familiarity.

Don’t strive to be what everyone expects you to be. Be who you deserve to be. Be all you can be. In order to break those old habits, you need to not care if people judge you. Because they will judge you. You have no control over the small, petty minds that inhabit our world.

The antidote to judgmental people is simply to believe in yourself. They hate that. They count on you not being strong enough to BELIEVE that you are good enough just the way you are.

I have a few favorite quotes from A.A. Milne, which speak to the importance of being brave enough to be you…

“The things that make me different are the things that make me.”

You are the only you that exists. Your uniqueness, while it may not be what other people expect or want, is precisely what makes you special. Maybe people don’t want you to shine because they’re afraid you’ll overshadow them, so they keep you trapped in that box, suffocating. Dying. Choking.

If you drink their Koolaid and willingly stay hidden from the world, it is both a loss for you as well as one for the Universe.

“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting
for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

Stepping out of the shadows and ripping off your veneer is scary. But every day I hope you can peel one layer of veneer off at a time to un-become what you have become and reclaim who you really are. Let that uninhibited child out. Come out, come out, wherever you are. Un-become and be free.

Let’s do it together. I’ll meet you by the swing set. I’ll be the one wearing a tutu.

Jeannie,
Sent this on to my 15 year old granddaughter who’s in the throes of “teenage hood “.
So powerful is this blog. I need to read this until total absorption occurs. Wish I had could have read this decades ago.

I know I’m a day late and a dollar short, but I just found this post. I completely agree with what you’ve said. I’ve had the same kind of last few years. And along the way, I found this poem I think you would like.